Motorola offers phone deal due to Jelly Bean

Mark Raby, 22nd October 2012

Because Motorola has been slow to roll out its Jelly Bean updates, the company is now offering a pretty good deal.

It's giving customers a $100 rebate if they buy a new Motorola phone that does not yet have the Android 4.1, or Jelly Bean, update.

Motorola said that a lot of devices will be getting the upgrade. "We have a lot of ground to cover though, so we won't be getting to all devices," it wrote in a blog post.

Among the devices included in the deal are the Atrix HD, Droid Razr M, Droid Razr HD, Droid Razr Maxx HD, Electrify 2, and Photon Q.

For some of these devices, Motorola promised to have the update available in 2012. It will have to break those promises.

The Jelly Bean upgrade could be considered a minor update for the Android platform, which is why it only brings the version number up to 4.1 instead of 5.0.

The most functional aspect of the update is that it looks different depending on the kind of device, so 7-inch tablets have a different presentation of Jelly Bean than 10-inch tablets or smartphones.

Among the updates are increased enhancements to the speed and performance of Android, new and sleeker widgets for the home screen, expandable notifications, and a more user-friendly app for viewing and deleting photos.

It also offers a new touchscreen keyboard for even more seamless text input, as well as new features for the ever-growing list of near field communication (NFC) devices, allowing users to tap phones together to enable things like photo sharing.